New site lets you tell your boss anything, anonymously

Offering feedback, even if it's done in constructive ways, can be a touchy process in a high-pressure environment. British Columbia-based social startup Happiily, however, is trying to make it a bit less fraught.

The company's new site, Tell Your Boss Anything, is the modern age's equivalent of the old suggestion box - employees can provide anonymized feedback to their managers, while managers who want to institute the system can invite workers to use the service. Manager accounts are available for $20 each.

Naturally, the product includes stringent filtering mechanisms to prevent it from being used as a simple medium for abuse. What's more, says founder Tom Williams, Tell Your Boss Anything will soon turn the suggestion box into a source of real insight into what's going on in the office.

"The Tell Your Boss Anything product will get features rolled out in the next few weeks that will have a little bit more insights around 'what are the issues that are getting the most feedback?'" he says. "We'll be doing some informatics and dashboard roll-up stuff."

The site is a small spin-off of Happiily's main product, a set of web applications that allows businesses to track mood and gain a sense of what their employees are thinking about. That service is priced on a per-seat basis, and - for anonymity reasons - is primarily aimed at businesses with more than a few dozen employees.

The genesis of Happiily, according to Williams, occurred when the team was working on a system that would allow conference attendees to rate each other in terms of professional clout. They quickly realized that the project could be suited for day-to-day use, superseding yearly or quarterly surveys as core employee feedback mechanisms.

Email Jon Gold at jgold@nww.com and follow him on Twitter at @NWWJonGold.

Copyright 2015 IDG Communications. ABN 14 001 592 650. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of IDG Communications is prohibited.